Rendering Out Video Sequences

[JustinSA]

Hello all,

I just wanted to find out the best way to render out video sequences built with Matinee in UE4? Does the sequence have to be able to run in real-time on my computer to do this, or is there a way to “render” out the video at full “epic” quality?

The reason I ask is that the computer I’m using at the moment is a bit sluggish, getting back onto my retina next month.

Thanks!

[darthviper107]

You can use the Record button in Matinee. That will let it take its time to do the rendering to maintain your framerate, but if it has to slow down to render a frame then it can effect things like motion blur. Other options are programs like Fraps which allow you to just record straight to a video.

[Jur4nd]

@JustinSA;22955

Hello all,
I just wanted to find out the best way to render out video sequences built with Matinee in UE4? Does the sequence have to be able to run in real-time on my computer to do this, or is there a way to “render” out the video at full “epic” quality?

I think that for high Quality Videos you should use DUMPMOVIE and BENCHMARK parameters, that way it will perfectly EPIC!

more details can be found here:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Basics/CommandLineArguments/index.html#rendering

I would also recommend to take a look on similar post regarding to UDK like this one:

UDK Forums Update

[JustinSA]

Thanks for the replies. The benchmark and dump movie option sound to be what I’m after although I have no idea how to actually implement them. But it’s a start. I will do some googling on them tomorrow and sure I will find a tut. J

[MrEdge]

Hi there,

Hope you are doing well.

In The Matinee Actor look for a button that Says ‘Movie’

It is to the Right Of The Red record Button.

When you click the Movie Button you find quite a few options to spit out a movie.

AVI movie Will create an AVI that can be found under your saved files folder.

Using the Image Sequence Options will create a series of still frame images that can be compiled into a movie through a program like Premier. (EX: import numbered stills into premier)

Single frames are often used for FX composites By The Way.

Capture Resolution lets you set the screen resolution the Movies are made at.

I usually use AVI because it does all the Assembly for you.

All of these will render at the specified FPS despite the strength of your machine.

Frames may take a while to render on slower machines but once the movie is created the movies runs at the specified Frame Rate.

Shout if you had any questions about the Tool and Good Luck!

Grayson

[Zooch]

@Grayson Edge;26651

All of these will render at the specified FPS despite the strength of your machine.

Frames may take a while to render on slower machines but once the movie is created the movies runs at the specified Frame Rate.

Thank you for this! I don’t have 3 graphics cards, so its really nice to know I can render at a fixed FPS without worrying about an external program.

[rotwang]

Rendering out still frames on OSX seems to be broken, please see my bugreports.
The extension fpr the MacVideoWriter needs to be .mov, not .avi. Otherwise quicktime cant preview and will start an unnecessary conversion. Also the compressed switch is missing to start h264 rendering (which is available in code).

[reedandrader]

The -dumpmovie method used for UDK works with UE4 too. Here is the syntax:

Is there a way to render high res videos out of UE4?

Below is the command line I used to render 5 seconds of the “Stylized” demo. It output the frames in C:\Users[YourUsername]\Documents\Unreal Projects\Stylized 4.1\Saved\Screenshots\Windows\

Replace [YourUsername] and put the following line in a batch file called “MakeMovie.bat” and run it.

“C:\Program Files\Unreal Engine\4.1\Engine\Binaries\Win64\ue4editor.exe” “C:\Users[YourUsername]\Documents\Unreal Projects\Stylized 4.1\Stylized.uproject” -game Maps\Stylized_Kingdom.umap?-ResX=1920 -ResY=1080 -BENCHMARK -FPS=24 -DUMPMOVIE -SECONDS=5 -SILENT -NOWRITE -NOTEXTURESTREAMING -WINDOWED

Anyone have any idea why this is nullifying my auto start matinee sequences though. I have a director track and in editor the matinee auto plays. Thoughts?

[HaxO]

Interesting, Would it be possible to run those command prompts from say a gui button?

[anonymous_user_384fd62b]

Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but are there any available compression settings for the jpeg sequence output? It is the most manageable format as it doesn’t take a lot of space and renders out about 100x quicker than PNG sequences do on my machine, but dark areas become extremely lossy to the point that the result is useless for images with lots of shadow.

[YahiyaJasem]

@HenrikRyosa;258687

Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but are there any available compression settings for the jpeg sequence output? It is the most manageable format as it doesn’t take a lot of space and renders out about 100x quicker than PNG sequences do on my machine, but dark areas become extremely lossy to the point that the result is useless for images with lots of shadow.

Not sure we can do that… but PNG or BMB still way much better than AVI

[CognizanCe]

I’m using these aruments on my package:
DUMPMOVIE -FULLSCREEN -BENCHMARK -FPS=30 -SECONDS=20 -ResX=1920 -ResY=1080

But I only get about 150 frames.
I should be getting 600.
Anyone know what’s going on?

[anonymous_user_d9d037a9]

You need to understand, JPEG (or JPG) is an inherently lossy algorithm. It was designed that way for maximum compression, sacrificing quality and detail in the process. PNG is a lossless compression, which retains quality and detail while reducing file size. TIF and BMP are not usually compressed, although TIF can have compression enabled. Get bigger hard drives. They are relatively inexpensive.

[anonymous_user_384fd62b]

@PaulHart;264215

You need to understand, JPEG (or JPG) is an inherently lossy algorithm. It was designed that way for maximum compression, sacrificing quality and detail in the process. PNG is a lossless compression, which retains quality and detail while reducing file size. TIF and BMP are not usually compressed, although TIF can have compression enabled. Get bigger hard drives. They are relatively inexpensive.

I know what JPEG is good for, but the bottom line is it normally comes with compression options, and here we get none from what I can see. How do we know they used quality, which is still, by the way a heck of a lot smaller than PNG would be. It looks much more like they used medium detail, which is pretty bad and barely even worth using, even for temp purposes (which is what I need it for. Obviously my final renders will not use JPEG.)

I will be doing a lot of this sort of thing, so telling me to simply get more/bigger hard drives isn’t as feasible as you think it is. And like I said, JPEG renders out a lot quicker than PNG does.

[anonymous_user_16d24296]

@CognizanCe;263934

I’m using these aruments on my package:
DUMPMOVIE -FULLSCREEN -BENCHMARK -FPS=30 -SECONDS=20 -ResX=1920 -ResY=1080

But I only get about 150 frames.
I should be getting 600.
Anyone know what’s going on?

Looking at the Command Line Arguments page on the wiki, the “Seconds” flag is for specifying the maximum tick time, not the length of time to run for